


Angel of Mercy

by altoinkblots



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 503 week, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - World War I, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, EdWin Week 2020, F/M, Trust me on this one, War, read both chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24028615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altoinkblots/pseuds/altoinkblots
Summary: It's the Great War, the War to End All Wars. The war where Winry, after two years of being a nurse, meets Edward all over again when she finds him on an operating table.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Comments: 19
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm completely serious: _read both chapters _because I tagged for both chapters; the tragedy is in chapter one, the happy ending in chapter two. If there's anything else I need to add, don't be afraid to tell me.__
> 
> _  
> _This was written for Day 4: Burn. I know it's late, but every week can be Edwin week if you try hard enough._  
>  _

Winry’s feet kicked up mud as she ran. She held her skirts high, not caring that it was against protocol. She had spent the day running between the trenches and the hospital, trying to get the soldiers out of the trenches and getting help for their wounds.

Rain fell into her eyes as it beat around her in sheets, but the moans and groaning of injured and dying soldiers drowned it out. In the distance she heard gunshots and explosions, but those were at least covered up by the rain. 

She ran into the hospital and changed out of her wet things; just the surface-level clothes she could manage to change, like her veil, apron, over sleeves, and shoes. She wiped her face down and washed her hands, ignoring the cracked skin on the back of her knuckles. 

Lilly poked her head in. “They need you in surgery,” she said. “Room three. One of the nurses went into shock, she said she can’t handle it anymore.”

“I’ll be right there,” said Winry.

Lilly left. Hundreds of wounded were coming in from yesterday’s battle, it was a miracle that the other nurse had found time to even leave the wards.

Winry threw on what she needed for surgery, and ran. Stretchers and gurneys moved past her, but she danced through the cacophony of people with practiced ease. She reached the third operating room, knocking before she entered. 

She nodded at the two other nurses and the doctor, before settling herself by the patient’s torso. One of the other nurses held onto his thigh, the last nurse assisting the doctor. Winry put her hands on the soldier’s leg, ready to hold it when the doctor started.

“It’s infected trench foot,” said the doctor. “We’ll take care of this before his wounds from battle.” He was right, Winry could see the markings from trench foot, but it was more than that. Something else had gotten in and infected it to the point where they had to amputate above the knee.

“Morphine’s already been administered,” said the nurse assisting the doctor. “Getting ready for the first incision.”

Winry nodded, ready to see yet more blood today. Even after two years as an active field nurse, she had never truly gotten used to the blood and death on the battlefield and off.

“First incision,” said the doctor, making a cut just above the soldier’s knee. 

Winry and the other nurse holding the leg lifted it up so the doctor could cut the flaps of skin. She didn’t take her eyes off of the leg as he cut away skin and muscle. He was fast but efficient. Like the rest of them, this doctor had seen too much.

The doctor asked for instruments, continuing the amputation. Still holding onto his leg, Winry let her eyes wander, assessing the soldier’s other injuries. Her eyes made it to his face, and her heart stopped. 

No. Anyone but him. 

She hated that, for a split second, she wished that it was some other soldier in Edward’s place. That this would be just another faceless soldier to her. Too many men had died with her hands on them, both on the operating table and off. Even though this doctor was one of the best, and he had performed thousands of amputations without complications, this was Edward. Her childhood friend and, if the war had never come, perhaps something more. Maybe if they hadn’t been swallowed by the war, anything could have happened. 

The doctor took away Edward’s lower leg, and Winry and the nurse helped her wrap the stump with cloth to stop the bleeding. The doctor took hold of the skin flaps and started stitching. 

It seemed to be fate that Edward was here, on an operating table, under Winry’s care. That was what she had done for him, from the skinned knees and broken bones. He had started her love of medicine, as she patched him up after each time he got hurt. Now here she was, making sure that his amputation went smoothly. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. 

“Nurse, is everything all right?” asked the doctor.”

“Yes,” she said, pulling her thoughts back to the operation at hand. 

_ No _ _,_ her mind screamed. But she was a nurse, and a damn good one. She couldn’t let personal feelings like childhood friends keep her from doing her job, so she didn’t.

She forced her brain to keep quiet. Don’t think about Edward bleeding out and under her care. Don’t think about what might have been. Make sure he was alive and that he made it out of the operating room. One step at a time. 

The doctor finished stitching the stump, tying it off. “How do his other injuries look?”

Winy’s eyes scanned over Edward again, this time in a professional sense. “Mild,” said the other nurse. “I think we can open up this room for another patient.”

Even when he was asleep under anesthesia, his eyebrows were furrowed. 

“I’ll take him back,” Winry volunteered. 

“Good. Hurry up.”

With help, her and the other nurses moved Edward from the operating table to a gurney. Winry pushed him out of the room and moved with the flow of traffic to the nearest ward. The morpheme was still in effect, thankfully. She didn’t want to know what his reaction would be to seeing her here of all places.

It took Winry two seconds to hear and recognize the sirens. She threw herself over Edward just as the bombs hit from above.

The world shook. Winry shut her eyes against the crimson red of the pure violence—that’s all it was, pure unadulterated violence—and covered Edward’s unconscious form with her own. 

She would have done the same to any other patient, but even now Edward was different.

Her ears rang and fires raged around her, but she was alive. At least for now. Still in her scrubs that were somehow still clean, her hair escaping her cap and tight bun, falling in strands down her face.

Pulling away, she glanced down at Edward. He was still out cold and he had a gash above his right eyebrow. She couldn’t remember if he came in with that wound, or it was a new one from the falling rubble. Winry checked his pulse and nearly cried from relief. At least he was still alive.

She kept pushing him to the ward. The bombs came from above, so there wasn’t truly a safe spot anywhere in the hospital. Bombs fell. The ground shook. Rubble fell from the ceiling. Winry’s feet crunched over glass shards, spotting small fires here and there.

This was far from her first air raid.

Edward’s eyes fluttered open, and Winry was at his side in a second. She cared for him, deeply, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he had just woken up from anesthesia in the middle of an air raid, and she needed to be there. She was a nurse, after all.

His eyes darted around, their once-gold tint looking more like a light brown. Winry put her hand on his cheek, whispering soothing words as his breathing and heart rate calmed, his gaze settling on her. She smiled down at him. It went against everything she knew, to smile during an air raid, but this was Edward, and he needed her smile. 

His eyes regained some of their gold color. “Winry,” he said, his voice coarse and rough. It sounded like he had inhaled some mustard gas, and Winry’s heart broke all over again.

“Hey, I’m here,” she said, brushing his gold-blond hair away from the cut on his forehead. She hovered over him, acting as a shield between him and any possible falling rubble. He wouldn’t die, not after she had just helped to save his life.

Edward’s hand found her own. “No wonder they call nurses angels of mercy. See? Against the light you have a halo, you’re even wearing white… If I didn’t hurt so damn much I’d think I was dead.”

“Shhh, don’t say things like that,” said Winry. “You’re not dying, not after I helped to save you.” She brought her other hand up, holding Edward’s free hand tight. “I’m right here, and I’m real.”

“You really are an angel,” whispered Edward, holding her hand to his chest. She still cupped his face. 

“I’m really not.”

“Yes, you are. You always have been.”

That made Winry genuinely smile. 

Edward’s fingernails dug into her hands, and he grimaced, tremors shooting through his body. “Sorry,” he gasped. “It hurts like hell.”

“What does?”

“Everything. My head, my lungs, my arms, my leg.” His eyes widened. “Winry, what happened to my leg?”

“We had to amputate it,” she said in a soft voice.

The ground shook again, and she almost fell on top of him.

Edward’s breathing changed to short bursts. “It’s… gone? You had to… They had to…”

Winry held onto Edward’s hand. “Squeeze,” she ordered.

He did so, tears leaking out of his eyes. Winry wiped them away with her free hand.

“Damn them,” he said once his breathing evened out. “Damn them and their stupid war, making us fight, making you come here.”

“I chose to come, Edward. They needed nurses, and with my history…”

“You could die out here!”

“So could you, dummy! We both could die right here, right now, and I wouldn’t regret a second of it.” She gestured around them, at the chaos surrounding them. Nurses and doctors ran, patients ran, stretcher-bearers took wounded soldiers to and from places. The air smelled of blood and chemicals.

“This is war, Winry!”

“You don’t think I’m aware of that? I knew damn well what I was signing up for when I volunteered.”

“At least you got a choice,” Edward grumbled. “They all but forced me out here.” His eyebrows furrowed together, making the expression that Winry was so familiar with.

“It was a choice? Tell me, Edward, would I have come out here if I had a choice?”

“It sounds like you did!”

“I came out so I could help people like you! I came out because I heard the stories of soldiers dying in the trenches, and I knew if I didn’t I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I can help these people, and I have been!”

“You were supposed to be safe! Far away from this hellhole.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nurses and patients rushed around them, but to Winry, Edward was the only person around. The only person that mattered, even in the middle of an air raid, even if they were arguing. Her heart ached for the missed time, and that this was the only real chance they would get to talk. After this, he would be her patient, nothing more. 

Edward dug in his uniform and pulled out a folded picture. It was worn and had dried blood on the corners, but as he unfolded it Winry’s heart fluttered and her breath caught in her throat.

“I was going to come home to you,” he whispered, showing her the picture. It was of her, back when they were younger, fooling around with cameras. It was a blurry picture, but it was clearly of her and she was smiling and happy. Winry wondered what it would be like to feel that way again. “The thought of you and Al was the only thing that kept me going. And now that you’re here, I… I don’t…”

“Is Alphonse okay?”

“Of course he is. I told him that if he ever came out here I’d kick his ass all the way back home.”

Winry smiled. 

Another bomb landed close by. Winry felt the heat from the explosion. The force of it landing and exploding pushed Edward and Winry away from each other. Winry landed hard on her bottom, but scrambled up to her feet to check that he was okay. He was, and Winry couldn’t keep the tears from her eyes this time. They fell onto Edward’s cheeks, clearing away the blood and grime. 

“I was so worried,” she wept. “I haven’t known if you were dead or alive, and when I saw you there on the table… Why are we even arguing in the first place? I’ve missed you, so so much, and…”

This time it was Edward’s turn to cup her face with his hands. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry for snapping.”

Winry laughed wetly. “You just had your leg cut off. I think I can give you a pass this time. Who knows, maybe next time I see you you’ll have come back, having single-handedly won the war.”

Edward’s eyes darkened. “I don’t want to go back,” he said. “I can’t go back. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done…”

The ground rattled again. Winry widened her stance and held Edward’s shoulders firmly to the gurney. A picture fell off of the walls, shattering as soon as it hit the ground. Odd, that the sound of shattering glass would be the sound ringing in Winry’s ears.

Edward narrowed his eyes. “I had no idea you would get air raids here.”

Winry nodded. “They like to take out hospitals, to keep us from tending to the wounded. It isn’t my first, and it certainly won’t be my last. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re just as broken as I am,” Edward whispered.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m refusing to let it get to me.”

“That’s not good, you know. Bottling up your emotions.”

“Really, who would have guessed?”

Edward grinned. “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

Another bomb crashed to the ground. Winry shut her eyes, time time seeing white. She felt Edward’s hand on her cheek, his palms calloused and worn from fighting and digging. She opened her eyes. 

“What do you want to do, once this is all over?” Edward asked. “Anything you want to do, anywhere you want to go. It’s all fair game.”

Winry thought for a moment. It’s been so long since she’s thought of anything outside of the war. “I want to go home and plant a garden,” she said. “Vegetables, fruits, flowers, anything. What about you?”

“I want to go to college. Get a degree in math or science. Possibly chemistry so I can figure out an antidote to this stupid gas.”

Winry grinned. “I’d love to see you do that.”

“Why don’t you come with me, then?”

Winry smiled. “We can have a little house with vines growing and an overgrown yard.”

“And children running around, playing in your garden. I want kids, by the way.”

“All right. We’ll have a lot of kids, and I’ll make sure they weed the garden and do the dishes and steal your leg when you’re sleeping.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll tell them to tackle you to the ground and give you hugs and kisses.”

They reached out to each other as another bomb hit. Winry trembled. This raid was worse than the others. Closer, somehow. As if they were trying to kill everyone here.

Edward pulled her head close to his chest and covered the back of her neck with his hand, deflecting a piece of rubble that fell there. Winry closed her eyes and gripped his shirt. “You’ll help them with their homework.”

“And when you’re feeling stressed I’ll make you dinner.”

Winy lifted her head from his chest. “I‘m glad I saw you again.”

Edward’s hand was still on the back or her neck. “I’m half convinced you’re my personal angel of mercy, Winry Rockbell.”

Something hot and thick dripped down her neck, and she grabbed Edward’s wrist. “Is your hand okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m a nurse, let me look at it.”

She held his hand, turning it over to reveal a nasty gash riddled with rocks and with blood pouring down and into the palm of his hand as she inspected it. She pulled a roll of gauze out of her apron pockets and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding. It gave her something to focus on other than the bombs and yelling.

“I wish we could have had more time,” Edward said. “I wish I hadn’t been a part of this, I wish you hadn’t found your way here, I wish this damn war wasn’t going on.”

“We’re still kids,” Winry mused. Small specks of rubble fell on top of her head. “We’ve both seen things that no person would see.”

“Winry?”

“Yes?”

“Can you promise me something?”

Winry let go of his hand, finished with the wrapping, and turned her full attention to Edward. “Sure. What is it?”

“Promise me that you won’t go where I can’t follow.”

Winry nodded. “I promise.”

A bomb hit, and the world shattered into a million little pieces.

* * *

Colonel Roy Mustang clambered over the rubble of the destroyed hospital. Everyone who had worked here knew the dangers of being so close to the front lines, but still. What kind of monsters bombed a hospital?

A few nurses and doctors were up and about, tending to the newly wounded and wounded they had already been taking care of before all hell broke loose. However, most of them were dead, and that’s where he came in. Find the bodies, identify them if there was anything left to identify, and move on. 

_ It’s a bloody waste, _ thought Roy.  _ They could have saved lives, but now they’re all dead, buried under tons of rubble. _

Pushing his thoughts to the side—he was used to that, now. He refused to let shell-shock rule his life—he kept digging through the rubble. At least it was a break from the trenches, and the sunken, haunted looks of his men.

He had seen some of them here, the ones that were wounded in yesterday’s battle. One was alive, insisting that he could help while burns and scarring from mustard gas covered his face and hands. The rest of Mustang’s men were dead. 

Part of him envied the dead soldiers and nurses. They couldn’t feel any more pain, they weren’t being thrown at the enemy like pigs to slaughter. They would have gotten off lucky if they hadn’t been blown up. 

Something white caught his eye, and he fell to his knees, shifting rubble and splintered pieces of wood out of the way. He pulled a wheel out, clearing away the limbs and faces so he could move and identify the bodies. 

He saw her face first, and then Sergeant Elric’s next. Roy fell back, his legs giving out on him. 

_ Even them. No one is safe. _

He recognized her, of course he did. Every chance he would get, Edward pulled out the letters from his brother and the girl he was going home too. Havoc and Breda had teased him mercilessly, but Roy had only felt pity for the kid. There was a good chance he wasn’t going home, not then; and the only way he was going home now was in a box. If even that. 

It was almost beautiful, the girl—Winry was her name, he had to remember that, now—shielding Edward with her own body, still wearing her white scrubs from surgery. Her eyes were open and glassy, while Edward’s remained closed. He had a hand on the back of her head, almost as if he had been shielding her from the worst of it. 

Havoc knelt down next to Roy, took one look at Edward and Winry, then sighed. “Them too?”

“Them too,” Roy agreed. 

“Looks like she died protecting him. Fat lot of good it did either of them, in the end. They were just kids.”

Roy gestured to their intertwined hands. “It doesn’t matter if they lived or died, she did what she did best. Being a good nurse, being his angel of mercy,” he said, referring to the nickname the soldiers had given the nurses. Especially in their white scrubs, saving lives. 

Havoc nodded. He reached over and closed Winry’s sapphire eyes, blue and lifeless. Now it looked like they both were sleeping. “God bless nurses.”

Roy placed a hand on Edward’s forehead. “No. God bless angels.”


	2. Chapter 2

Winry’s feet kicked up mud as she ran. She held her skirts high, not caring that it was against protocol. She had spent the day running between the trenches and the hospital, trying to get the soldiers out of the trenches and getting help for their wounds.

Rain fell into her eyes as it beat around her in sheets, but the moans and groaning of injured and dying soldiers drowned it out. In the distance she heard gunshots and explosions, but those were at least covered up by the rain. 

She ran into the hospital and changed out of her wet things; just the surface-level clothes she could manage to change, like her veil, apron, over sleeves, and shoes. She wiped her face down and washed her hands, ignoring the cracked skin on the back of her knuckles. 

Lilly poked her head in. “They need you in surgery,” she said. “Room three. One of the nurses went into shock, she said she can’t handle it anymore.”

“I’ll be right there,” said Winry.

Lilly left. Hundreds of wounded were coming in from yesterday’s battle, it was a miracle that the other nurse had found time to even leave the wards.

Winry threw on what she needed for surgery, and ran. Stretchers and gurneys moved past her, but she danced through the cacophony of people with practiced ease. She reached the third operating room, knocking before she entered. 

She nodded at the two other nurses and the doctor, before settling herself by the patient’s torso. One of the other nurses held onto his thigh, the last nurse assisting the doctor. Winry put her hands on the soldier’s leg, ready to hold it when the doctor started.

“It’s infected trench foot,” said the doctor. “We’ll take care of this before his wounds from battle.” He was right, Winry could see the markings from trench foot, but it was more than that. Something else had gotten in and infected it to the point where they had to amputate above the knee.

“Morphine’s already been administered,” said the nurse assisting the doctor. “Getting ready for the first incision.”

Winry nodded, ready to see yet more blood today. Even after two years as an active field nurse, she had never truly gotten used to the blood and death on the battlefield and off.

“First incision,” said the doctor, making a cut just above the soldier’s knee. 

Winry and the other nurse holding the leg lifted it up so the doctor could cut the flaps of skin. She didn’t take her eyes off of the leg as he cut away skin and muscle. He was fast but efficient. Like the rest of them, this doctor had seen too much.

The doctor asked for instruments, continuing the amputation. Still holding onto his leg, Winry let her eyes wander, assessing the soldier’s other injuries. Her eyes made it to his face, and her heart stopped. 

No. Anyone but him. 

She hated that, for a split second, she wished that it was some other soldier in Edward’s place. That this would be just another faceless soldier to her. Too many men had died with her hands on them, both on the operating table and off. Even though this doctor was one of the best, and he had performed thousands of amputations without complications, this was Edward. Her childhood friend and, if the war had never come, perhaps something more. Maybe if they hadn’t been swallowed by the war, anything could have happened. 

The doctor took away Edward’s lower leg, and Winry and the nurse helped her wrap the stump with cloth to stop the bleeding. The doctor took hold of the skin flaps and started stitching. 

It seemed to be fate that Edward was here, on an operating table, under Winry’s care. That was what she had done for him, from the skinned knees and broken bones. He had started her love of medicine, as she patched him up after each time he got hurt. Now here she was, making sure that his amputation went smoothly. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. 

“Nurse, is everything all right?” asked the doctor.”

“Yes,” she said, pulling her thoughts back to the operation at hand. 

_ No _ , her mind screamed. But she was a nurse, and a damn good one. She couldn’t let personal feelings like childhood friends keep her from doing her job, so she didn’t.

She forced her brain to keep quiet. Don’t think about Edward bleeding out and under her care. Don’t think about what might have been. Make sure he was alive and that he made it out of the operating room. One step at a time. 

The doctor finished stitching the stump, tying it off. “How do his other injuries look?”

Winy’s eyes scanned over Edward again, this time in a professional sense. “Mild,” said the other nurse. “I think we can open up this room for another patient.”

Even when he was asleep under anesthesia, his eyebrows were furrowed. 

“I’ll take him back,” Winry volunteered. 

“Good. Hurry up.”

With help, her and the other nurses moved Edward from the operating table to a gurney. Winry pushed him out of the room and moved with the flow of traffic to the nearest ward. The morpheme was still in effect, thankfully. She didn’t want to know what his reaction would be to seeing her here of all places.

It took Winry two seconds to hear and recognize the sirens. She threw herself over Edward just as the bombs hit from above.

The world shook. Winry shut her eyes against the crimson red of the pure violence—that’s all it was, pure unadulterated violence—and covered Edward’s unconscious form with her own. 

She would have done the same to any other patient, but even now Edward was different.

Her ears rang and fires raged around her, but she was alive. At least for now. Still in her scrubs that were somehow still clean, her hair escaping her cap and tight bun, falling in strands down her face.

Pulling away, she glanced down at Edward. He was still out cold and he had a gash above his right eyebrow. She couldn’t remember if he came in with that wound, or it was a new one from the falling rubble. Winry checked his pulse and nearly cried from relief. At least he was still alive.

She kept pushing him to the ward. The bombs came from above, so there wasn’t truly a safe spot anywhere in the hospital. Bombs fell. The ground shook. Rubble fell from the ceiling. Winry’s feet crunched over glass shards, spotting small fires here and there.

This was far from her first air raid.

Edward’s eyes fluttered open, and Winry was at his side in a second. She cared for him, deeply, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he had just woken up from anesthesia in the middle of an air raid, and she needed to be there. She was a nurse, after all.

His eyes darted around, their once-gold tint looking more like a light brown. Winry put her hand on his cheek, whispering soothing words as his breathing and heart rate calmed, his gaze settling on her. She smiled down at him. It went against everything she knew, to smile during an air raid, but this was Edward, and he needed her smile. 

His eyes regained some of their gold color. “Winry,” he said, his voice coarse and rough. It sounded like he had inhaled some mustard gas, and Winry’s heart broke all over again.

“Hey, I’m here,” she said, brushing his gold-blond hair away from the cut on his forehead. She hovered over him, acting as a shield between him and any possible falling rubble. He wouldn’t die, not after she had just helped to save his life.

Edward’s hand found her own. “No wonder they call nurses angels of mercy. See? Against the light you have a halo, you’re even wearing white… If I didn’t hurt so damn much I’d think I was dead.”

“Shhh, don’t say things like that,” said Winry. “You’re not dying, not after I helped to save you.” She brought her other hand up, holding Edward’s free hand tight. “I’m right here, and I’m real.”

“You really are an angel,” whispered Edward, holding her hand to his chest. She still cupped his face. 

“I’m really not.”

“Yes, you are. You always have been.”

That made Winry genuinely smile. 

Edward’s fingernails dug into her hands, and he grimaced, tremors shooting through his body. “Sorry,” he gasped. “It hurts like hell.”

“What does?”

“Everything. My head, my lungs, my arms, my leg.” His eyes widened. “Winry, what happened to my leg?”

“We had to amputate it,” she said in a soft voice.

The ground shook again, and she almost fell on top of him.

Edward’s breathing changed to short bursts. “It’s… gone? You had to… They had to…”

Winry held onto Edward’s hand. “Squeeze,” she ordered.

He did so, tears leaking out of his eyes. Winry wiped them away with her free hand.

“Damn them,” he said once his breathing evened out. “Damn them and their stupid war, making us fight, making you come here.”

“I chose to come, Edward. They needed nurses, and with my history…”

“You could die out here!”

“So could you, dummy! We both could die right here, right now, and I wouldn’t regret a second of it.” She gestured around them, at the chaos surrounding them. Nurses and doctors ran, patients ran, stretcher-bearers took wounded soldiers to and from places. The air smelled of blood and chemicals.

“This is war, Winry!”

“You don’t think I’m aware of that? I knew damn well what I was signing up for when I volunteered.”

“At least you got a choice,” Edward grumbled. “They all but forced me out here.” His eyebrows furrowed together, making the expression that Winry was so familiar with.

“It was a choice? Tell me, Edward, would I have come out here if I had a choice?”

“It sounds like you did!”

“I came out so I could help people like you! I came out because I heard the stories of soldiers dying in the trenches, and I knew if I didn’t I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I can help these people, and I have been!”

“You were supposed to be safe! Far away from this hellhole.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nurses and patients rushed around them, but to Winry, Edward was the only person around. The only person that mattered, even in the middle of an air raid, even if they were arguing. Her heart ached for the missed time, and that this was the only real chance they would get to talk. After this, he would be her patient, nothing more. 

Edward dug in his uniform and pulled out a folded picture. It was worn and had dried blood on the corners, but as he unfolded it Winry’s heart fluttered and her breath caught in her throat.

“I was going to come home to you,” he whispered, showing her the picture. It was of her, back when they were younger, fooling around with cameras. It was a blurry picture, but it was clearly of her and she was smiling and happy. Winry wondered what it would be like to feel that way again. “The thought of you and Al was the only thing that kept me going. And now that you’re here, I… I don’t…”

“Is Alphonse okay?”

“Of course he is. I told him that if he ever came out here I’d kick his ass all the way back home.”

Winry smiled. 

Another bomb landed close by. Winry felt the heat from the explosion. The force of it landing and exploding pushed Edward and Winry away from each other. Winry landed hard on her bottom, but scrambled up to her feet to check that he was okay. He was, and Winry couldn’t keep the tears from her eyes this time. They fell onto Edward’s cheeks, clearing away the blood and grime. 

“I was so worried,” she wept. “I haven’t known if you were dead or alive, and when I saw you there on the table… Why are we even arguing in the first place? I’ve missed you, so so much, and…”

This time it was Edward’s turn to cup her face with his hands. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry for snapping.”

Winry laughed wetly. “You just had your leg cut off. I think I can give you a pass this time. Who knows, maybe next time I see you you’ll have come back, having single-handedly won the war.”

Edward’s eyes darkened. “I don’t want to go back,” he said. “I can’t go back. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done…”

The ground rattled again. Winry widened her stance and held Edward’s shoulders firmly to the gurney. A picture fell off of the walls, shattering as soon as it hit the ground. Odd, that the sound of shattering glass would be the sound ringing in Winry’s ears.

Edward narrowed his eyes. “I had no idea you would get air raids here.”

Winry nodded. “They like to take out hospitals, to keep us from tending to the wounded. It isn’t my first, and it certainly won’t be my last. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re just as broken as I am,” Edward whispered.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m refusing to let it get to me.”

“That’s not good, you know. Bottling up your emotions.”

“Really, who would have guessed?”

Edward grinned. “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

Another bomb crashed to the ground. Winry shut her eyes, time time seeing white. She felt Edward’s hand on her cheek, his palms calloused and worn from fighting and digging. She opened her eyes. 

“What do you want to do, once this is all over?” Edward asked. “Anything you want to do, anywhere you want to go. It’s all fair game.”

Winry thought for a moment. It’s been so long since she’s thought of anything outside of the war. “I want to go home and plant a garden,” she said. “Vegetables, fruits, flowers, anything. What about you?”

“I want to go to college. Get a degree in math or science. Possibly chemistry so I can figure out an antidote to this stupid gas.”

Winry grinned. “I’d love to see you do that.”

“Why don’t you come with me, then?”

Winry smiled. “We can have a little house with vines growing and an overgrown yard.”

“And children running around, playing in your garden. I want kids, by the way.”

“All right. We’ll have a lot of kids, and I’ll make sure they weed the garden and do the dishes and steal your leg when you’re sleeping.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll tell them to tackle you to the ground and give you hugs and kisses.”

They reached out to each other as another bomb hit. Winry trembled. This raid was worse than the others. Closer, somehow. As if they were trying to kill everyone here.

Edward pulled her head close to his chest and covered the back of her neck with his hand, deflecting a piece of rubble that fell there. Winry closed her eyes and gripped his shirt. “You’ll help them with their homework.”

“And when you’re feeling stressed I’ll make you dinner.”

Winy lifted her head from his chest. “I‘m glad I saw you again.”

Edward’s hand was still on the back or her neck. “I’m half convinced you’re my personal angel of mercy, Winry Rockbell.”

Something hot and thick dripped down her neck, and she grabbed Edward’s wrist. “Is your hand okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m a nurse, let me look at it.”

She held his hand, turning it over to reveal a nasty gash riddled with rocks and with blood pouring down and into the palm of his hand as she inspected it. She pulled a roll of gauze out of her apron pockets and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding. It gave her something to focus on other than the bombs and yelling.

“I wish we could have had more time,” Edward said. “I wish I hadn’t been a part of this, I wish you hadn’t found your way here, I wish this damn war wasn’t going on.”

“We’re still kids,” Winry mused. Small specks of rubble fell on top of her head. “We’ve both seen things that no person would see.”

“Winry?”

“Yes?”

“Can you promise me something?”

Winry let go of his hand, finished with the wrapping, and turned her full attention to Edward. “Sure. What is it?”

“Promise me that you won’t go where I can’t follow.”

Winry nodded. “I promise.”

A bomb hit, and the world shattered into a million little pieces.

* * *

If Edward could walk, he’d have visited Winry every single day they had been in the hospital. A hospital far, far from the front lines, but a hospital nonetheless. He didn’t know whether to be glad they were safely in one, or hate the fact that they had been reunited then almost blown up within ten minutes in another hospital. 

He couldn’t sort out his thoughts, they were a jumbled mess of barbed wire and wet mud sloshing around his shoes.

He still felt that. At least he thought he did. He’d wake up in the middle of the night with pins and needles shooting up his left leg from his toes to his hip, then remember he didn’t have a left leg anymore. At least he still had an eye, when they had separated him and Winry half of her face was covered in blood from shrapnel flying into her face. 

He was fine. She had shielded him from the worst of it.

Nurse Hawkeye came in, inspecting the nurses in this ward and talking to other patients like him. She was the matron of this ward, and she always made an effort to stop by and try to lift the spirits of the wounded here. She made her rounds before sitting next to his bed.

“How are you holding up?” she asked. 

“Fine.”

He didn’t bother saying much else. His wounds were healing, his lungs were pretty okay, and he had physical therapy four times a week. He was doing fine, but he’d also been asking after Winry for the past two weeks. All he was ever given was a simple: “She’s doing well.” He didn’t give a damn about what the nurses reported, he wanted to see her with his own eyes, to make sure that she really was doing okay.

Being reunited in a war zone did that.

“I have a surprise for you.”

Ed blinked. “What is it?”

Hawkeye waved another nurse over, and with her help, the two of them lifted him from the bed and settled him into a wheelchair. 

“If the surprise is going outside I’ve already done that today.”

“No, it’s not that. I’d say this one is better.”

Edward started coughing, and Hawkeye shoved a glass of water into his hands before he could protest. “Drink,” she ordered. 

He guzzled down the water, his throat burning a little bit. It had gotten better, but it would never truly heal. He gave the cup back, and she started pushing him out of the ward and down the hallway. 

This hospital was white and pristine, with landscape pictures hanging on the walls and big, open windows showing a field of bright green grass. A stark difference to the trenches on the front lines. 

He fiddled with his thumbs, his hands in his lap. If only he could get out and move, to run free and far away from his memories, everything would be okay. He’d do anything to make sure he wasn’t stuck in this chair forever, that his mind wouldn’t stay static. He refused to let the war rule his life.

Nurse Hawkeye pushed him into a different ward and past the full beds. There wasn’t an open spot here.

Edward sat up straighter as soon as he saw her, leaning forward as if that would make him arrive at her side sooner. Her blonde hair hung around her face, a giant white bandage covering one of her eyes. She looked up from what she was doing and her face lit up.

Nurse Hawkeye pushed him until he sat by Winry’s bed. He immediately reached for her, to make sure she was real, that she was here. 

“I’ll leave you two alone,” said Hawkeye. “Let one of us know when you’re ready to go back.”

Edward waited for her to leave before lunging forward and wrapping Winry in the biggest hug he could manage. She hugged him back, gripping his shirt in her fist. They held onto each other like they had that day, when the world had shattered around them.

“I’ve been asking after you every day,” he said.

Winry laughed weakly. “Me too. What do you think of the new look?”

Ed pulled away from the hug, his hands still on her shoulders. He cupped her face and neck in his hands, running his thumbs over her cheeks. “I don’t care, as long as you’re alive I don’t think I’ll ever care.”

Winry blushed. Edward would have too, but after fighting in a pointless war for two years and seeing things no one should ever see, he didn’t care if he was too forward. He thought he had lost her before, he wasn’t going to lose her again. 

She reached up and brought his hand into her lap, holding onto it. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. “It finally hit me, what I’ve seen. The death and destruction, and I—“

“You’re not alone in this, Winry. You won’t be alone with this, not while I’m around.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Well, I did make a promise. I’m never going anywhere you can’t follow.”

“And I’d follow you to hell and back.”

“Well, we’ve already been through hell, so how about we never do that again?”

Edward laughed for the first time in two weeks.

Off in the corner, Riza watched the two of them. They reminded her of something that she had given up a long time ago; but as they laughed and smiled she couldn’t help but smile herself. Maybe there was hope in the world.

Rebecca stood next to her, her hands on her hips. “You know, they remind me of someone else I know,” she said with a grin.

Riza rolled her eyes. “That’s not happening, and you know it. Besides, I don’t have time for settling down. I’m too busy being a nurse, remember?”

Rebecca nodded. “You know, the soldiers call us ‘angels of mercy.’ I think it’s especially fitting, considering those two.”

Edward and Winry talked, their heads close together. Riza could see their hands and how tightly they held onto each other, as if they were both scared the other would leave them. “They’re both being taken off active duty. Nurse Rockbell can’t exactly be a nurse with one eye, and Sergeant Elric’s wounds are a bit too much for him to be able to go back.” That, and his commanding officer had refused to let him go back to the front lines.  _ Let the kid be happy _ , the telegram read. Riza kept it in her pocket.

“They deserve more than this,” Rebecca muttered. “Normally I don’t get attached, but they’re different. Maybe it’s not just her that’s the angel. Maybe it’s him.”

“I don’t put much stock in angels.”

The young nurse leaned her head back and laughed, the bright sound echoing through the ward. Edward looked at her as if she had hung the sun in the sky.

Riza smiled. “Maybe just this once.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave a comment/kudos if you liked it!!


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